Top Global Packaging Trends for the Short and Medium Term

Predictability is one of the key tools for managers and Logistic Packaging is here to help you with our expertise – this time concerning the global packaging trends for the next 5 years. The market conditions are changing, industries are shifting their market shares and all companies need to be aware of all these changes.

How Packaging Trends Impact the Global Market

The current supply chain and global trade markets are fully interlocked – one industry affects all the others. If there is a crisis in the maritime shipping sector, supply chains worth billions of US dollars are crippled. If manufacturing costs increase, the entire wholesale and retail market is affected. Likewise, if packaging trends and demands change, all the industries depending on it must adapt and embrace these changes.

During the past decade, we have seen tremendous changes imposed by the change in customers’ behavior, mainly influenced by online shopping. For the next period, the transformations within the industries themselves will influence the change in demand for professional packaging materials.

These changes involve:

The Top Packaging Trend – an Increasing Demand for Specialized Food Packaging

Food continues to be the most in-demand merchandize at global level. It comes as no surprise as the world population is growing. What has changed is the level of awareness among end consumers concerning food safety.

Food is exported on longer and longer routes across continents and has to face various unfavorable conditions such as exposure to heat and cold, extreme weather conditions (rain, snow, hail) and less than clean environments. For this reason, the demand for specialized packaging to protect food from contamination is the number one among the future packaging trends.

From cleanroom pallets to specialized fish containers and attached lid containers, the packaging companies are required to provide the food industry with safe and reliable products for the storage and transport of their products.

The Pharmaceutical Industry Requires More Secure and Safer Packaging

The demand for anti-tampering devices such as seals for the lids of picking totes is among the top packaging trends for the near future. This high demand comes mainly from the pharmaceutical industry. The global market for medicines and other pharma products has been facing a crisis of tampered and falsified products for years. Products of suspicious origin end up mixed together with batches of legitimate pharmaceutical products.

Therefore, the need for increased control and security of their shipments is a legitimate demand from the pharmaceutical industry. Both B2B clients and end consumers demand stricter oversight during the storage and transport of pharma products, and the packaging industry is ready to fulfill this demand.

Specialized ranges of totes and containers with lids protected by seals and RFID labels continue to be developed and improved. Special features, such as thermo-insulating inserts also help protect sensitive products which need to be maintained at specific temperatures during the transport.

Tracking Devices – a Must Have Accessory for All Industries

Last but not least, among the top packaging trends at global level, there is a constantly increasing demand for tracking devices. Once premium accessories, RFID chips and labels are now standard elements of packaging materials for long term transport. Companies need to mitigate their losses in any manner they can. Damaged, lost, and stolen products in transit are among the significant ways in which companies lose money.

By close and real time monitoring of their shipments from checkpoint to checkpoint, companies can observe any changes to the quantity and quality of their products, identify the vulnerabilities of the route they chose and the conditions of transport and make changes to avoid a new occurrence.

These trends confirm the fact that the global economy is growing, that supply chains work, become more specialized and more careful with issues such as safety and security. Professional companies like Logistic Packaging are already making the shift in research and development and production efforts to comply with the current packaging trends and will continue to keep in touch with the demands of the global market.